Ask Atos Healthcare disability assessment questions

Muttleythefrog

Atos_Healthcare_company_representative wrote: »

schrodie, Atos Healthcare are involved in the assessment process, rather than the decision making process.

This is misleading and to be blunt a PR response. ATOS are involved in the decision making process, they provide key evidence to it. The DWP consult ATOS HC to provide them specific advice to help them take the decision.. that is what you are contracted to do. They may not actually take the decisions (although many claimants do actually report ATOS HCPs telling them what the decision will be despite this being well outside their remit) but they provide key evidence in order to take such.

Here's my question for you. What should a claimant do if at medical assessment the HCP reveals (or it becomes clear) they have not read in advance the evidence they have been supplied such as completed ESA50. This is reported by many people and I have covert recording of the HCP at my medical telling me so.

2nd question. How does one go about finding out who the HCP will be who carries out their medical. I made a FOI request in advance of my medical but the person who actually carried it out was not the person named in the FOI reply. How are HCPs allocated to assessment - is it done on ad-hoc or 'conveyor belt' basis? And if of a system such as this does this explain why some claimants are actually turned down for medical by the HCP when they arrive in the actual assessment room and their medical problems in basic terms become evident?

My 3rd question is based on the fact these questions haven't been answered by you before despite you no doubt seeing them. Where do I go to get the answers to my questions if you are not prepared to give them?

JS477

Muttleythefrog wrote: »

This is misleading and to be blunt a PR response. ATOS are involved in the decision making process, they provide key evidence to it. They may not actually take the decisions (although many claimants do actually report ATOS HCPs telling them what the decision will be despite this being well outside their remit) but they provide key evidence in order to take such.

Of course it's misleading given that DWP DMs take more notice of a report from some physiotherapist having assessed a person with a mental health issue than the claimants own consultant!

For Atos to say they are not part of the decision making process is disingenuous at the very least!

Also it's reported that the inadequacy of Atos assessments cost the taxpayer about £25million!! Here

Muttleythefrog

victimofatos wrote: »

How do I find the name of the person who interrogated me, the HCP . I have severe mental illness ,and received 0 points and this person was probably not a DR . she didn't know what most of my Meds were . she didnt know the type of cancer I had . she conducted the interview in the dark as she had a headache !!.

Call the DWP.. number at top of ESA letters and ask for copy of the ESA85 ATOS medical report. That should give the name of the HCP and their occupation. From that you should be able to contact their regulatory body or make complaint as otherwise appropriate. Appealing may be an option for you - the more usual route for effectively challenging woefully inadequate ATOS HCP assessments or resulting reports that probably underpinned the decision being appealed. But time is limited. If you haven't already then maybe getting some advice would be useful.. CAB or welfare rights etc.

sicknotethefirst

d-hoc or 'conveyor belt' basis?

That's what I was told by Atos themselves in an email.

JS477

Atos_Healthcare_company_representative wrote: »

the Panorama programme was making reference to our audit processes – by audit we mean that we check the quality of cases completed by a practitioner.

And if your "audit" shows that a practitioner has a higher than average number of SG recommendations what happens to them!!

Atos_Healthcare_representative

KxMx wrote: »

What is the official policy on recording a WCA. Specifically when a claimant has requested this in advance, been told it will take place and then upon arrival are told it won't happen after all.

Some have had new appointments made no problem, others have been threatened with removal of benefits if they do not proceed with the WCA (unrecorded).

Hi

The DWP has not put in place a policy to introduce universal recording of assessments. They have instead asked us to try to accommodate requests for audio recording where they are made in advance of an assessment. However, they have also asked us not to delay an assessment if, for example, it isn’t possible to get access to the equipment on the date/time of the WCA. In that case, we would tell the person before their assessment.
You would only be told on the day if there were unforeseen circumstances such as a fault with the equipment, so I’m sorry if that happened in your case.

We have increased the number of recording devices available to us to try and make sure we can accommodate as many requests as possible. At the moment there is a small backlog but we’re working hard to get through it and we hope that there will be very few cases where we can’t offer a recorded assessment to those who want it.

Atos_Healthcare_representative

rogerblack wrote: »

Why is ATOS not able to purchase sufficient recorders so as to have sufficient when claimants request a recorded interview.

Hi
When we record an assessment we have to make sure the recording is of an acceptable quality, we must be able to provide two copies, one for the claimant and one for us, and we must be able to store it in a format that meets DWP’s data protection and security requirements. The recording devices used meet all of these requirements. They do however take a while to arrive if we need to order new ones.

Given that DWP has not implemented a universal recording of assessments, they have been working with us to see how many recording devices are needed to accommodate the number of requests we get. We also have to bear in mind the geography as we provide assessments across all parts of the country and the devices have to be sent to the centre where the appointment is taking place. There was a shortfall last year but we now have more equipment in place and we hope to be able to accommodate the majority of requests.

Muttleythefrog

Atos_Healthcare_company_representative wrote: »

We have increased the number of recording devices available to us to try and make sure we can accommodate as many requests as possible.

To how many? And how many are currently functional?

Last time I saw (official DWP FOI) details there were just 11 for 141 assessment centres and around half were broken. I hope this has dramatically improved.

Muttleythefrog

Atos_Healthcare_company_representative wrote: »

That’s about us checking our quality and making sure you can expect a consistent approach to your assessment whoever carries it out.

But consistent is not what the 'customer' wants. The customer wants correct. When I go for an eye test I don't care that Joe Bloggs half a country away is getting identical treatment to me... I want good service. The customer wants procedure to be followed and to have opportunity to be properly assessed against the criteria. And this is the problem with your auditing. It 'forces' compliance to within certain expectations of efficiency and arguably outcome (as no member of staff I've ever encountered liked to be audited for irregularity... and I've audited many for that to ensure they were following correct procedures or falling within certain ranges of expected outcome.. and yes there were no targets either!) rather than setting the benchmark as accuracy. It is quite clear HCPs are under enormous pressure to process swiftly - customers report widely variant examples of this being evident. In fact in my case the excuse given for not reading my ESA50 was that she (the HCP) did not have time (would your audit pick this up? I doubt it). And of course HCPs themselves I understand have placed in the public domain similar complaint. So my question is obviously when are the internal auditing processes going to focus on accuracy (throughout HCP career) as the main KPI?

JS477

Atos_Healthcare_company_representative wrote: »

Hi
When we record an assessment we have to make sure the recording is of an acceptable quality, we must be able to provide two copies, one for the claimant and one for us, and we must be able to store it in a format that meets DWP’s data protection and security requirements. The recording devices used meet all of these requirements. They do however take a while to arrive if we need to order new ones.

The police seem to be able to do it very easily have have done for many years so why can't you.

Who has the contract for supplying audio recording machines to the DWP?